


Crashing

by graceless_wolf



Series: Falling [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Incest, M/M, WOOOOAH, hahaha what a fun tag to use, i kept writing the falling au, im going to hell for this arent i, now with MORE MICHIFER, yeah probaby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-29
Updated: 2013-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-21 17:23:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/902902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/graceless_wolf/pseuds/graceless_wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You didn’t have to cook,” Michael says cautiously.</p>
<p>Lucifer’s hand pauses where it’s stirring the pasta. “I needed to.”</p>
<p>He looks back at Michael and then he’s being caged in against the counter, boiling water sloshing in the pot and Michael’s arms are crushing Lucifer to him. He tucks his head over Michael’s shoulder, and he can feel his brother’s breath against his neck.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Michael murmurs into his skin and he tightens his grip. Lucifer smiles a little.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crashing

**crashing** v.intr.

_a. To break violently or noisily; smash._

_b. To undergo sudden damage or destruction on impact_

 

 

 Lucifer is thirteen years old when Michael kisses him for the first time. They’re sitting on the roof, watching a meteor shower when it happens.

 

(“It’s the first one in _years_ , Luci! C’mon!”

 

“How many times have I told you not to call me that?” Lucifer huffs, but he’s smiling because it’s honestly kind of adorable that Michael is so excited about this. He goes along with it because he loves his brother.

 

“It’s in the low hundreds,” Michael says, squeezing Lucifer’s hand and smiling back.)

 

Michael is warm, pressed against his side and Lucifer is content to sit out here for a while and watch the bright, hazy lights that look less like meteors and more like angels, falling down. He blames the thought on the warm beer clutched in his hand, and moves on.

 

An hour passes, and he’s not so much looking at the sky any more, as much as he’s looking at Michael.

 

Green eyes flash at him and Michael laughs, the sound floating away on the same breeze that ruffles their hair. Lucifer has always loved the summer. It’s too easy to feel cold, sometimes. And maybe that’s why he does it. Even with the summer breeze, and the beer - no longer cold, but not yet warm - settling in his stomach, he feels a chill.

 

Michael pushes against his shoulder. “C’mon, Luci,” he says, soft and happy, “watch.”

 

“I am,” Lucifer replies easily, smiling.

 

Michael’s answering smile makes Lucifer’s stomach do some funny tumbles. “The skies, Luci, not me. The skies are much more interesting, I assure you.”

 

Lucifer snorts, “I don’t believe you.”

 

The look Michael gives him is strange. In a way, it’s like he’s holding something back at the same time that he’s saying everything. They’re two sides of the same coin in moments like this, where not saying anything says everything, and saying something would be too much, too soon. Saying something would drag them out of this safe place, where the air is warm and Lucifer can still feel Michael’s warmth where it settles against his lips.

 

They blame it on the beer and the meteor showers and the summer air and don’t talk about it for two years.

 

*

 

Lucifer is fifteen when he gets jealous. Michael is hanging out with a boy. Some nameless, faceless boy that he talks about at lunch and dinner and spends the evenings with at the library.

 

Michael still comes into his bedroom at night, where they lie in silence sometimes and other times they talk about nothing. But nights - as pleasant as it is to sleep with Michael wrapped around him, breathing in sync - are never enough. He may get Michael’s nights, but this boy gets Michael’s days, and Michael’s smiles.

 

He spends his days trying to keep busy, instead. He shouldn’t be jealous, he tells himself, not of this. One kiss shouldn’t add up to this. Not with his brother.

 

So he avoids the library, and he avoids his house. He takes pictures instead, of the woods behind their house. That too ends, however, when he begins thinking that the sunlight through the leaves of the trees is far too similar to the color of his brother’s eyes.

 

Eventually, the jealousy turns to anger. He can’t tell if he’s angry at the boy, at Michael, or at himself and honestly, it doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t matter because he can’t do anything about it and he’s not sure if that makes it better or worse.

 

It gets so bad that one night, he locks his door.

 

He hears Michael’s footsteps at his door around 3 am. The knob turns, but doesn’t open and Lucifer stuffs his head under his pillow so he doesn’t have to hear Michael whispering, “Lucifer, Luci open the door!”

Michael doesn’t leave for another hour, and Lucifer doesn’t hear him mutter, “I’m sorry,” when he does.

 

Michael doesn’t talk about the boy anymore. Instead, he gives Lucifer anxious looks, and doesn’t come to Lucifer’s room for a week.

 

Lucifer doesn’t meet Michael’s gaze for a week, and when it’s over, he stops locking his door.

*

 

Lucifer runs away when he’s seventeen. He doesn’t leave a note. Castiel and Gabriel are too young to understand what’s happening anyways, and Michael- well, Michael and his father, he thinks, are probably all too happy to see him go.

 

So, he packs a bag, and with twenty dollars (taken from Michael’s wallet as a “parting gift”) to his name, he’s officially on his own. It takes three days to get out of Kansas, it would have taken longer, but he has the help of a trucker named Benny.

 

He stays in Missouri awhile, before meandering down to Louisiana. New Orleans is a beacon for him, lights and sound and a city that never sleeps. He calls it home, though it isn’t, not really. And on the 9th of November, he receives a letter:

 

_Luci,_

 

_I know, you said not to call you that, but_

 

_Anyways, I know you probably don’t want to come home, and I know why, but I- we need you. Chuck- Dad- he’s gone. Not gone, really, but he’s not here. Castiel doesn’t even call him Dad anymore, he calls him Chuck, or Father, when he’s here. Gabriel is a handful, and you, you’d be able to handle him._

 

_Me? If you came back, Luci, I’d stay out of your way, I promise. We wouldn’t have to talk, in fact, that’d probably be better for both of us._

 

_But I can’t do this on my own, Luce. I need you._

 

_Michael_

 

It takes him ten minutes to make a decision, then two trains, a bus, and a trucker who calls himself Grits to get back to Lawrence, Kansas. Lucifer is twenty-two years old when he knocks on the door of his house- his home, and Michael opens it with a ten year old Castiel peering out from behind him.

 

Michael looks tired, ragged and nothing and everything like Lucifer remembers.

 

“Brother,” Michael breathes, like the word is a forbidden fruit, and Lucifer is the snake in his Garden of Eden. “You’re looking well.”

 

Lucifer smiles, slow and easy and hides the sadness in his eyes, where he can tuck it away until he’s alone. “You aren’t,” he says.

 

“So you’re Lucifer.” Castiel says, staring up at him imperiously.

 

“And you’re Cassie.”

 

“My name is Castiel.” He replies, forehead wrinkling in indignation. “Only my Dean can call me Cas.”

 

“Your Dean?” Lucifer asks, cocking an eyebrow and looking back to Michael for clarification.

“The neighbor’s son, Dean Winchester. Castiel has, well, he’s taken a liking to him.” Michael explains fondly.

 

The rest of the evening is surprisingly easy. Gabriel has missed him and barrels down the stairs two at a time to leap onto his back like a monkey. Castiel takes him on a tour of the house (which includes an extensive show of his many bookshelves.) Lucifer makes dinner, and his heart feels too heavy when he sees the look of relief on his brother’s face, as Michael sits at the kitchen table.

 

“You didn’t have to cook,” Michael says cautiously.

 

Lucifer’s hand pauses where it’s stirring the pasta. “I needed to.”

 

He looks back at Michael and then he’s being caged in against the counter, boiling water sloshing in the pot and Michael’s arms are crushing Lucifer to him. He tucks his head over Michael’s shoulder, and he can feel his brother’s breath against his neck.

 

“I’m sorry,” Michael murmurs into his skin and he tightens his grip. Lucifer smiles a little.

 

“As am I.”They hear footsteps on the stairs and quickly untangle themselves. Lucifer grabs Michael’s wrist and pulls him in to place a soft kiss to his forehead. “Go get ready for dinner, I can set the table.”

 

Michael nods, walking out of the kitchen and leaving Lucifer with too many thoughts in his head. Dinner is laid back, and no one asks questions. Then before he knows it, he and Michael are doing the dishes and Gabriel and Castiel are fighting for counter space in the bathroom.

 

“So I noticed,” Lucifer says as Michael passes him a plate, “Castiel has my old room.”

 

Michael nods once, “I can sleep on the couch until we get Castiel to room with Gabe.”

 

Lucifer opens his mouth to speak, but hesitates. This is it. If he says this now, there’s no going back. They’ve always been heading towards this point, he thinks, this nameless point where the line was blurred but never crossed. And they’ve only crossed it twice. Once when he was thirteen and Michael tasted like warm beer and stars. Once when he was fifteen and Michael felt like moving earth and forgiveness. Their line is different than other lines. It’s not as steady, and when he reaches for it, it’s like trying to pull in the tide. No matter how many times you try and predict where the wave will end on the shore, you don’t really know. There’s always some greater force than the likes of you controlling it.

 

 

“Luci?”

 

He smiles at Michael, “We used to share a bed when we were younger, Michael. I see no use in making Castiel and Gabriel share a room unless you’re actually wishing for the end of the world.”

 

Michael nods, wordlessly, and they finish up the dishes and go to sleep.

 

Except they don’t, because they end up as tangled as ever before, awake, but not talking. Until Michael asks, “Where’d you go?”

 

“Here and there. I was in New Orleans when I got your letter. How’d you find me?”

 

“Benny.” Michael hums his response into Lucifer’s hair and Lucifer nods against Michael’s neck. It’s quiet for a few more minutes when Michael asks the bigger question. It’s the one Lucifer’s been waiting for.

 

“Why’d you go?” Michael asks. His voice is hesitant, like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to know the answer. Lucifer turns his head further into Michael’s neck like maybe he’ll find the words he needs with skin and touch and simple, desperate hope. Because Michael deserves an answer, but Lucifer isn’t yet sure he can give him one.

 

“Yeah,” Michael says, “Yeah, I know.”

 

He feels Michael’s hands carding through his hair one last time before he falls asleep.

 

*

 

Lucifer is twenty four when it all comes to a head. Castiel and Gabriel are at the Winchesters’ for the weekend and he and Michael finally have a night off. He’s been careful. It’s been two years since he came back and he’s been oh so careful. Their line is easy to distinguish now, and he won’t cross it.

 

Except he does.

 

Michael is sitting at the kitchen table, bills and tax papers spread out around him. Reading glasses are perched precariously on the bridge of his nose. It’s that time of year again.

 

Lucifer doesn’t hesitate to reach into the cabinets and pull out a bottle of whiskey, and no glasses. He screws off the cap and takes a sip, feeling the familiar burn sting its way down his throat and settle, warm and familiar, in his stomach.

 

Wordlessly, he passes the bottle to Michael, who takes it gratefully. Their father sends them money, but it’s just enough. Gabriel eats them out of house and home and Castiel has taken a surprising amount of interest in particle physics, for a twelve year old. Financial security is a dream made of filtered light and cigarette smoke, always just out of reach.

 

He sits across from his brother, and it takes them ten minutes to figure out that they aren’t getting any work done that night. Fifteen minutes finds them both drunker than they’d been in a while, and twenty reaches them sitting side by side with their backs against the cabinets, passing the half empty bottle back and forth wordlessly.

 

“Michael,” Lucifer says after a while. His words are heavy with emotions and whiskey and he doesn’t say anything else.

 

“Lucifer,” Michael says, and then he laughs because this is ridiculous. It always has been. This silly little dance they do, traipsing not-so gracefully around the other and waiting, neither making the first move.

 

Lucifer laughs too, and when he looks up, Michael’s face is closer than it was ten seconds ago.

 

“Michael,” he repeats, and now it’s quiet, and low. He can feel the waves crashing against their own personal shore. The line they drew in the sand, children, only children with a future torn to pieces by tidal waves of alcohol and absent fathers, is fading. It’s ebbing away and they’re close. Too close. Not close enough.

 

“Lucifer,” Michael says before he kisses him.

 

It’s like the wall inside him shatters and they’re thirteen again, with sloppy tongues and wandering hands, but now they’re grown. Michael knows what he wants and he isn’t afraid to ask for it. Lucifer is more than willing to hand it over.

 

They were stars. Crossed in too many ways to fathom and they would pass each other, close but never meeting.

 

Now they are crashing, burning bright as they fall to the ground, but they crash into one another over and over again. They have always been in a downward spiral, and when they land, it will be spectacular.

**Author's Note:**

> whoa  
> i wrote more of this au for the ever lovely bun  
> if you'd like to hit me up im on tumblr at: deanwinchestershalo


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